


displacement

by dizzydreamer



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Because I love drama, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Soulmates, alas, five and vanya fall in love while five is trapped in the apocalypse, if i was a better writer you might even be able to call this a character study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzydreamer/pseuds/dizzydreamer
Summary: The day after Five leaves, Vanya wakes to the sound of rain against her window. It's a steady thrum, the hiss of it, clinging to the asphalt and biting at the heat. It kisses at her cheek, the uncertainty of it all, like lips against teeth, and she can hear it. Life, and its hollow breathing, shaking through broken teeth.Anxiety scratches at the windowsill, dizzy in its insistence, and it's the heat of it all; the ugly, wonderful reminder of being alive that she'll remember years later.She brings the pen to her wrist, and she writes,'Are you dead?'Or: They fall in love while Five’s trapped in the apocalypse. A'what you write on your body shows up on your soulmate'AU
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 31
Kudos: 193





	displacement

**Displacement, _noun:_ A vector quality. Property of physics used to refer to how far out of place an object is.**

* * *

The day after Five leaves, Vanya wakes to the sound of rain against her window. It’s a steady thrum, the hiss of it, clinging to the asphalt and biting at the heat. It kisses at her cheek, the uncertainty of it all, like lips against teeth, and she can hear it. Life and its hollow breathing, shaking through broken teeth.

Anxiety scratches at the windowsill, dizzy in its insistence, and she is reminded so suddenly of wrath, can taste it the way the gods could, lets it sink into her bones. It’s almost funny then, the way nurture is nothing to nature, the way the wind knocks shadows against her floorboard like old friends. 

And then the sky’s gone passive, quiet in its vengeance, and it’s the heat of it all; the ugly, wonderful reminder of being alive that she’ll remember years later. 

Five walks out, and the sun is shining. Five walks out and Vanya does not cry. Five walks out on promises and birthdays and her, and Vanya starts taking two pills with dinner.

Five walks out and Vanya just wants to be numb.

* * *

Summer turns to winter, and then to summer again. She makes a stranger of the seasons, lets them pass over her like shadows. She is pale as sin and empty, starving, the kind that rattles your bones. She is hungry, all fragile joints and rotten teeth. She is only playing, really, at being alive. 

She is careful and cautious and _angry_ , so angry, trembling with it, shaking under the weight. She is heat and fury and smoke, curling in her lungs, all dirty fingernails that wrap at her throat, so she is silent. She does not say much. She does not say anything. She is a silhouette these days, pitch as her shadow and quiet as death. She does not eat, does not sleep, sleeps too much, cries too little. She takes up space, and then disappears. Digs shallow graves at the dinner table. She is the taste of gravel and she talks in tongues, you see, so people stop listening. 

Time passes, and Vanya does not miss it. Time passes and Vanya misses everything. Time passes, and Vanya only ever takes three pills once. 

She wakes up to rain on her sixteenth birthday. She takes her pills, and goes back to bed.

When she wakes up twelve hours later, there are no words on her hip. Her arms and her jaw and her thighs are silent. Like death.

She doesn’t try again, but the pill bottle sits indignant on the shelf. 

* * *

Allison presses kisses to her wrist, and Luther’s got the phantom press of lipstick under his sleeve. Diego is covered, really, head to toe sometimes, black lick of sharpie to his hands and his wrists and his forehead, once. Ben writes love letters on the notches of his ribs and no one replies. Klaus presses a blade to his thigh and has to say sorry. 

Vanya tries too. She is wary of getting her hopes up. She has been taught a lesson in wanting things too much. 

She takes a pen off the shelf, uncapping it with shaking fingers. It’s one of Allison’s, somehow, and the ink is pink. Her breath catches on the inhale and she holds it there. Safe, between her teeth, first for a second, and then two. And when she exhales, it’s clean. Simple. There is no tremor, no grief, just a girl, quiet. The light spills in from the hallway where the door is cracked, and it paints her skin honey. Luther's got a record playing, something low and lovely, crooning through the wallpaper, and she inhales the feeling. The absence of fear, tastes the echo of it on her tongue. She swallows it down and for once does not choke. 

She holds the pen, and her hands do not shake. Her breath slips steady through her teeth, dripping down her tongue and kissing at her wrist. She feels the weight of it in her palm, the ridges and the spine of it, all bubblegum ink and beauty queen smiles. 

She brings the pen to her wrist and writes, ‘ _Are you dead_?’

She waits there, drowning in the moment for what feels like hours. She falls asleep to the silence.

Her pill bottle sits forgotten on the shelf.

* * *

The sun sits heavy in the sky, hot as sin and picking at the pavement, rough scratch of summer that drips down her back. The heat is oppressive, chewing through the air and licking at her spine. Vanya can feel it, pouring through the window and lapping at the sheets. It scratches at her shadow, golden pour of summer that pants at her skin, and she raises a hand to unstick her hair from her neck. 

She blinks, sweaty, and kicks off the comforter, padding to the sink. Her smile is dizzy, but there, and she turns on the shower, toeing off her socks and her nightgown.

Vanya is tired, but alive. Vanya is bleeding, but alive. Vanya is sixteen, and lonely, and _miserable_ , so miserable, the kind of bitter that eats at you, bites at your jaw with bloody teeth, but she is breathing. She is wretched and heaving and lonely, but she is real, and here, and she can taste it; life, on the back of her teeth. 

She dries her hair. She brushes her teeth. She picks at her skin with careful fingers. Same brown hair. Same brown eyes. The tilt of her lip, the line of her jaw. The same dip in her ribs, the same heave of her chest. Her thumbs and her wrists and the same “ _No_ ,” smudged in ink, stretched lonely on her forearm.

Vanya pauses. Presses close to mirror, tilts it this way and that. Studies it, cautious, and then all at once she’s crying, desperate, the kind that’s all moans and spit, breath catching thick in her jaw. She has played stranger to her body all these years, and now she greets it, softly, like lovers might. Presses her fingers to the curve of his letters, kisses the syllables, all awkward angles, but she know his handwriting anywhere.

Holds her arm up next to the chalk of his walls and laughs, for the first time in months.

Vanya grabs a pen. 

**Author's Note:**

> vanya is problematic bc she sleeps in socks 
> 
> hi!!! this is my first fic for this fandom so i hope this isnt too terrible!
> 
> thanks to tullyblue for being very kind during the writing of this! i hope this made you smile
> 
> i was hopped up on nyquil for two weeks straight and read to the very bottom of the fiveya tag, so i figured, fuck it, lets create some content. be the change you want to see in the world, kids
> 
> honestly im still not sure if this good or not so i really hope someone enjoyed this!
> 
> tysm for reading!!!! if you liked anything about it id love to know!!


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